Whitlock’s blog was called J.School, and though it’s been inactive for months now, there was a short period of time in which the takes were cooking. Whitlock was particularly interested in the student protests that took place at the University of Missouri last fall, and wrote several posts deriding the student protesters, whom he dubbed “Al Sharpton’s Bastard Children.” Around the same time, Whitlock started accepting submissions to his blog, and began publishing counterpoints and responses from readers. It was obvious what we had to do: trick Whitlock into putting a piece of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf on J.School.

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The bulk of the work was done by my colleague, Patrick Redford. He went about skimming the infamous autobiography/Nazi manifesto for a section that felt vague enough to be crafted into a rant about the situation at Mizzou, and then interspersed it with some sentences about social justice warriors and the PC Police. We invented a fake name for the author of the piece, Adrian Hilton, and sent it to Whitlock from a Yahoo email address. Here is exactly what we sent him:

Mr. Whitlock,

My name is Adrian Hilton and I’m an aspiring sportswriter originally from outside St. Louis. This week, I’ve seen far too many boilerplate, “concerned” articles about the ridiculous nothingburger of a scandal happening in my home state, and I’ve been searching for nontraditional outlet that might welcome my thoughts on the matter. This isn’t a rebuttal to your reflections on Mizzou, per se. But as a native of the state, this episode is a really dangerous example of groupthink run amok that necessitates real and strong action on the part of reasonable people.

I look forward to hearing from you.

-AH

My Struggle For Truth, by Adrian Hilton

The man who has not the courage to shoulder responsibility for his actions is not fitted to be a leader. That’s what I think about when I look at the PC-obsessed sheep of Mizzou. I see a herd of sheep. These followers of groupthink are cowards for not thinking freely and ignoring the bias of the media. And they are harmful to our progress as a nation. The problem is our political climate, where people are beaten down by the thought police if they express an opinion. Nobody will have the courage to say: “Gentlemen, I am afraid we know nothing about what we are talking about. I for one have no competency in the matter at all.”

If you lack the requisite courage, or if you yourself do not know clearly what your better substitute ought to be, leave the whole thing alone. But, whatever happens, do not try to reach the goal by the roundabout way of a phony hunger strike if you are not brave enough to fight with your visor lifted. When we see the sheeple of Missouri losing their minds over a FAKE feces swastika, I feel sad for our youth. They have been misguided by their liberal educations and by the social media herd calling for blood.

The problem is that everyone follows what the too-cool-for-school liberal leaders tell them and write for them on blogs. This is why independent-thinking media outlets are so important now: At a time in which the one side, armed with all the fighting power that springs from a systematic conception of “justice”—even though it be criminal in a thousand ways—makes an attack against the established order, the other side will be able to resist when it draws its strength from a new faith, which in our case is our original Christian values. This faith must supersede the weak and cowardly command to defend and proclaim #blacklivesmatter without any real thought. In its stead we must raise the battle-cry of a courageous and ruthless attack.

It is of the utmost importance to insist again and again that idealism is not merely a superfluous manifestation of sentiment but rather something which has been, is and always will be, a necessary precondition of human civilization. I want a better America and a better Missouri. Where the PC social justice warriors don’t run a proud man out of a job. Where we can call out society’s infections for the ills they are. The adherents of our movements must always remember this, whenever they may have misgivings, lest the greatness of the sacrifices demanded of them may not be justified by the possibilities of success.

I believe it was Frank Sobotka who said, “We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket.” But this internet mob isn’t content to steal from your pocket. They want to take from your own free will. Nobody will then have the courage to take a decisive step. They will submit to abuse and defamation rather than pluck up courage to take a definite stand. And thus nobody is left who is willing to risk his position and his career, if needs be, in support of a determined line of policy.

Game done changed.

About 30 minutes later, young Adrian Hilton received a reply from Whitlock. It read, “Give me some more background on yourself. Where’d you go to school and whatnot? This piece isn’t bad.” Just in case you think we are making this up, here is a screenshot:

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We spent about an hour trying to come up with a reply that would keep our ruse alive, and eventually settled on this:

Mr. Whitlock,

Thanks for writing back so quickly. I’m glad you like the piece.

As for my background, I’m a 23-year-old aspiring writer. I studied history at St. Louis Community College, but have always wanted to break into the world of journalism. Your writing on the Mizzou situation inspired me to write down my thoughts.

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Apparently, we freakin’ blew it, because Whitlock never responded and My Struggle For Truth, by Adrian Hilton,never ran on J.School.

So what did we learn? First, that the staff of Deadspin is impossibly childish and petty. Second, that Jason Whitlock thinks Hitler had some pretty good ideas.

This is Gawker Media’s last week as an independent media operation, and while that shouldn’t affect you much one way or the other as a reader, we’re still going to take advantage of a pretext to run some especially stupid posts. If you have any ideas for such posts, hit us at tips@deadspin.com.